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How or If

The attitude of less successful people says “if” I can succeed. The attitude of highly successful people says “how” will I succeed. They know they will succeed at whatever they do, the only question is how.

When your mindset is one of “if” you allow the possibility of failure to enter your life. When you allow the possibility of failure into your life you could possibly talk yourself into not even trying.

There may not be a way to absolutely guarantee success but there is most certainly a way to guarantee failure… and that is not trying in the first place. When you decide the effort to try is too great to bother you have just accepted failure. You may have to swallow hard the first time you do it but no worries… failure not only gets easier, it becomes a habit.

The mindset of “if” causes lots of self-discussion. Discussions about “if” I try how much work will it be. “If” I try will I might look foolish if I fall short. That discussion can quickly become one of “why bother” because it’s so much work and I’m more likely to fail than not.

With a mindset of “how” the self-discussions are much more focused…. the “if” is not considered, the discussions are all focused on the strategies and tactics required to succeed.

The “how” mindset accepts 100% responsibility for the success or failure of whatever it is they are working on.

The “if” mindset prepares the excuses in advance. The “how” mindset simply prepares to succeed. The “if” mindset says I’ll do everything I can and if things work out I’ll be fine. The “how” mindset says I’ll do everything that needs to be done so if things don’t work out I’ll still be just fine.

If you think having to do everything is unfair then consider this:

50% – 50% partnerships do not work. You may think that if do your part and “they” do theirs everything will work out. But when was the last time anything great was accomplished with a 50% effort. Success happens for those people who give a 100% effort every single time. They don’t leave any part of their success up to chance and they certainly don’t leave it up to anyone else.